The Power of Words : Affirming Intention & Context : Part 2 of 3

::When you're drowning you don't think, I would be incredibly pleased if someone would notice I'm drowning and come and rescue me. You just scream.::
- John Lennon



A few years back, I had the pleasure of working with a team of counselors who went into middle and high schools to conduct groups with young women and men who either had been involved in a violent dating relationship or were at risk for being involved in this type of relationship.  Most outside agencies offering direct services to students have difficulty arranging space, coordinating time with students, and gaining the respect of teachers/administrators.  Having a contract with the school district means little outside of having permission to be on the campus.  To sidestep some of the issues associated with student attendance, one of our counselors had their attendees put the time for the next meeting into their cell phone calendars. I thought this was brilliant!  As our team had been looking at all the various ways our students used technology, with us of course attempting to figure out how we could tap into their teen brains, I realized that one of the more prevalent issues teens face, in fact, that we all face when we are in stressful situations, is a form of forgetfulness.  The knowledge that we have an arsenal of resiliency skills at our disposal seems to fly out the window.  

My experiment began with using the calendar in my own cell phone to send myself daily reminders of my own strengths.  Hopeful that this might aide my students and clients, as well as myself, I placed what I began to call, Secret Messages of Love™,  into that calendar.  The experiment was to last for one year.  My message was simply, "I trust myself."  I had the message timed to open at the beginning of my work day, but quickly realized I needed an earlier reminder.  To set my intention for how I would approach my life on those days, I had my Secret Messages of Love™ with my first cup of coffee.  Another thing I changed was the number of times I would receive the message throughout the week.  I moved from once a week to three times a week.  Over the course of a year, I found myself feeling pleasantly surprised each time my phone offered its' special ring for my Secret Messages of Love™ reminder, increasingly thinking of the deeper power behind the simplicity of  words, and knowing that after a year of washing my own brain in self-love,  this would be a powerful tool in the hands of my clients!

Inevitably, as I passed along this tool to my colleagues, there arose the concern of using this approach with clients that didn't have cell phones.  As many of my elementary students didn't have cell phones, I sent them home with a note to their parent, outlining the project.  If the note came back signed, giving the student permission to participate, the student went home with a Sharpie marker to use on a bathroom mirror or a window.  The next concern was how would a client come up with their Secret Messages of Love™.   Remember the Love Day : Write A Poem post?  That was one way to direct the process.  Yet, what I discovered, is that my clients knew what needed to be remembered.  A tiny level 5 tornado of love, a fiery first grader I worked with in an alternative elementary school, wrote, "I need my family to have money so we can always buy us some food!" on his bathroom mirror.  One group of middle school students, after having a discussion around the rate of suicide prompted by prolonged bullying, decided their Secret Messages of Love™ experiment would include "I will offer loving words to my friends."  My high school students, gathered for an all-school rally during Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month, sent out over 1,000  loving text messages to their friends.  The sound from all those cell phones going off at once was a thunder clap of BIG LOVE!  One of the most endearing messages came from a mother.  Just before going to bed, her message read, "I love MY SELF and MY CHILDREN.  ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE!  

Sit back, close your eyes, and make your "I" statement.  Send it out to the Universe!  Put it in your cell phone!  Write it on your bathroom mirror!  And watch your world change!

Create the life you want!
The Broad
 

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The Power of Words : Affirming Intention & Context

"This is the oppressor's language // yet I need it to talk to you,..."

Adrienne Rich, American Poet, The Will to Change

A petite woman with a Dallas accent, and the alter ego of Dolly Parton, walked into my first graduate school course, and shouted, "Get out of my face Mother F**ker!"  Yeah, it was shocking, and that was Doris Arrington's intent.  Doris was the department chair.  She had a way of making every one of her words count.  There was no splitting hairs over her words' intentions.

This particular sentence began a discourse in preparation for ways our future clients may choose to distance us, and themselves from the counseling process.  My fellow classmate, and carpool buddy, Anna Hiscox, could not stop laughing our entire trip back home. As a New York Bronx native, this kind of language coming from a tiny blond, and very white woman, was enough to split Anna's gut.  We began to imagine Doris in a variety of scenarios, like her observing a fine specimen of a man - "He is one fine Mother F**ker!".  Or perhaps she would have to fend off advances by a drunk in the subway - "Don't f**k with me Mother F**ker!".  At any rate, we could barely control ourselves, and it forever changed the way we perceived Doris.

Living abroad, is living out of context.  For many of us, living without the full command of the language of our adopted country, is living in silence.  Many of us can pick-up the general intention of the native speaker, say for example if you are ordering a meal.  Yet, in a more complex social situations, being without words, having little to no command of the language, makes true living less rich, and at times, intimidating.  

Four years ago, when I first began investigating the state where I am now living, I was verbally accosted by a couple of very drunk men, at a very early hour.  At 6:30 a.m., heading into the village center to catch a bus into the city, I hear the stumbling and mumblings of a person.  Keeping a steady pace, I turn around to see the two coming out of a local beer store.  One of them shouts, "Hey whore, come give me a kiss", while his partner lets out a lasciviously laugh that lands him face down on the sand road.  At that moment, in a fearful state, all I can bring to mind is a line from a Spanish language soap opera.  I whirl around with the might of a freight engine, and shout, "Soy su segunda madre, asshole!", which means, "I am your second mother, asshole!"  The drunk standing, stops dead in his tracks, sort of, and with a warble in in voice, says, in English,  "I'm sorry Lady."

A few years later, I'm retelling this story to an expatriate man in my adopted village, who has less command of the language than I do.  After I repeat, in Spanish, the words the drunk initially spoke to me, this man says, "I don't believe you, but go on."  Of course, I'm not going to continue with the story, but I do want to know what it is he does not believe.  "What is the word for bridge?"  To fully comprehend this portion of the tale, you have to know that the offensive word, "whore", begins with the letter "P" and that word I am being asked to say, "bridge", also begins with the letter "P".  I reply, "I assure you, he was not calling me a bridge."

It's all about the context.

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